UNITED STATES
Boston Globe
By Michael Rezendes and Lisa Wangsness | GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 06, 2014
The Vatican was the subject Wednesday of a blistering critique by a UN human rights committee that accused the Catholic Church of systematically adopting policies that permitted priests to sexually abuse tens of thousands of children globally over the last several decades.
The United Nations committee faulted the church for failing to take effective measures to reveal the breadth of clergy sexual abuse in the past, and for not adopting measures to sufficiently protect Catholic children in the future.
“The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse,” the report said. …
Terence McKiernan, president of the Massachusetts nonprofit Bishop Accountability, predicted that the impact of the UN findings will likely be profound.
“The depth and gravity of the Catholic Church’s abuse problem have now been confirmed by an international body,” McKiernan said.
Thomas H. Groome, professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, said the committee’s report should spur the Vatican to adopt stronger policies to prevent abuse.
“Whatever excuses the church may have cited for its egregious handling of clergy sexual abuse in the past (e.g., that it didn’t know the harm this did to children), it certainly has no excuse going forward,” Groome said in an e-mail. “It must embrace this report, facing it with total honesty, and then determine to implement what needs to be done to ensure that our church is never again so irresponsible and our Catholic faith never again so betrayed.”
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